Poetry
Lebanon: Twenty Poems for One Love
Liban : vingt poèmes pour un amour
Nadia Tueni · 1979
Synopsis
Twenty love poems addressed to Lebanon, written during the civil war and dedicated to Nayla, the author's late daughter. Famous places of the country become symbolic figures of its eternal essence, while other poems start from memory and nostalgia and take on a prophetic tone; everywhere beauty and destruction, love and hatred, and people's bond with their land are intertwined.
Context
The collection appeared in Beirut in 1979, with drawings by Amine el-Bacha, and preceded the Archives sentimentales d'une guerre au Liban of 1982. Its author was then the wife of Lebanon's representative to the United Nations. Samuel Hazo translated it in full into English as Lebanon: Twenty Poems for One Love, in a bilingual anthology edited by Christophe Ippolito and published in 2006 by Syracuse University Press.
Who it is for
To hear a French-speaking voice from Lebanon answering war with a love song for her land.
Prizes and reception
Critics and politicians nicknamed the author "the songbird of Lebanon".